scholarly journals Top-down feature-based cueing modulates conflict-specific ERP components in a Stroop-like task with equiprobable conditions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Galashan ◽  
Julia Siemann ◽  
Manfred Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Target Location ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Response Preparation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Invalid Condition ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Attentional Selectivity ◽  
Interference Processing

AbstractBoth attention and interference processing involve the selection of relevant information from incoming signals. Studies already show that interference decreases when the target location is precued correctly using spatial cueing. Complementary, we examine the effect of feature-based attentional cueing on interference processing. We used a design with equal stimulus probabilities where no response preparation was possible in the valid condition due to a response mapping alternation from trial to trial. The color of the Stroop stimuli was precued either validly or invalidly. Electrophysiological data (EEG) from 20 human participants are reported. We expected reduced interference effects with valid cueing for behavioral data and for both Stroop-associated event-related potential (ERP) components (N450 and sustained positive potential; SP). The N450 showed a significant effect for valid trials but no effect in the invalid condition. In contrast, the SP was absent with valid cueing and present with invalid cues. These findings suggest that focused feature-based attention leads to a more effective attentional selectivity. Furthermore, the top-down influence of feature-based attention differentially affects the N450 and SP components.

scholarly journals Indexing the graded allocation of visuospatial attention using anticipatory alpha oscillations

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 1318-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian C. Gould ◽  
Matthew F. Rushworth ◽  
Anna C. Nobre
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Times ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Visuospatial Attention ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Response Preparation ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Eeg Data

Lateralization in the desynchronization of anticipatory occipitoparietal alpha (8–12 Hz) oscillations has been implicated in the allocation of selective visuospatial attention. Previous studies have demonstrated that small changes in the lateralization of alpha-band activity are predictive of behavioral performance but have not directly investigated how flexibly alpha lateralization is linked to top-down attentional goals. To address this question, we presented participants with cues providing varying degrees of spatial certainty about the location at which a target would appear. Time-frequency analysis of EEG data demonstrated that manipulating spatial certainty led to graded changes in the extent to which alpha oscillations were lateralized over the occipitoparietal cortex during the cue-target interval. We found that individual differences in alpha desynchronization contralateral to attention predicted reaction times, event-related potential measures of perceptual processing of targets, and beta-band (15–25 Hz) activity typically associated with response preparation. These results support the hypothesis that anticipatory alpha modulation is a plausible neural mechanism underlying the allocation of visuospatial attention and is under flexible top-down control.

scholarly journals Decision-related feedback in visual cortex lacks spatial selectivity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina R. Quinn ◽  
Lenka Seillier ◽  
Daniel A. Butts ◽  
Hendrikje Nienborg
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Spatial Selectivity ◽  
Population Responses ◽  
Stimulus Choice ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Computational Work ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
The Brain

AbstractFeedback in the brain is thought to convey contextual information that underlies our flexibility to perform different tasks. Empirical and computational work on the visual system suggests this is achieved by targeting task-relevant neuronal subpopulations. We combine two tasks, each resulting in selective modulation by feedback, to test whether the feedback reflected the combination of both selectivities. We used visual feature-discrimination specified at one of two possible locations and uncoupled the decision formation from motor plans to report it, while recording in macaque mid-level visual areas. Here we show that although the behavior is spatially selective, using only task-relevant information, modulation by decision-related feedback is spatially unselective. Population responses reveal similar stimulus-choice alignments irrespective of stimulus relevance. The results suggest a common mechanism across tasks, independent of the spatial selectivity these tasks demand. This may reflect biological constraints and facilitate generalization across tasks. Our findings also support a previously hypothesized link between feature-based attention and decision-related activity.

scholarly journals Color Can Shorten Breakthrough Times in Continuous Flash Suppression through Increased Salience and Task Relevance

Vision ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Christian Valuch
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Interocular Suppression ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Mediated Effects ◽  
Dominant Eye ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
And Task

Color can enhance the perception of relevant stimuli by increasing their salience and guiding visual search towards stimuli that match a task-relevant color. Using Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), the current study investigated whether color facilitates the discrimination of targets that are difficult to perceive due to interocular suppression. Gabor patterns of two or four cycles per degree (cpd) were shown as targets to the non-dominant eye of human participants. CFS masks were presented at a rate of 10 Hz to the dominant eye, and participants had the task to report the target’s orientation as soon as they could discriminate it. The 2-cpd targets were robustly suppressed and resulted in much longer response times compared to 4-cpd targets. Moreover, only for 2-cpd targets, two color-related effects were evident. First, in trials where targets and CFS masks had different colors, targets were reported faster than in trials where targets and CFS masks had the same color. Second, targets with a known color, either cyan or yellow, were reported earlier than targets whose color was randomly cyan or yellow. The results suggest that the targets’ entry to consciousness may have been speeded by color-mediated effects relating to increased (bottom-up) salience and (top-down) task relevance.

Decoupling countermands nonselective response inhibition during selective stopping

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey George Wadsley ◽  
John Cirillo ◽  
Arne Nieuwenhuys ◽  
Winston D Byblow
Keyword(s):  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Interference Effect ◽  
Complex Form ◽  
Functional Coupling ◽  
Response Preparation ◽  
Response Delay ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior ◽  
Effector Response

Response inhibition is essential for goal-directed behavior within dynamic environments. Selective stopping is a complex form of response inhibition where only part of a multi-effector response must be cancelled. A substantial response delay emerges on unstopped effectors when a cued effector is successfully stopped. This stopping-interference effect is indicative of nonselective response inhibition during selective stopping which may, in-part, be a consequence of functional coupling. The present study examined selective stopping of (de)coupled bimanual responses in healthy human participants of either sex. Participants performed synchronous and asynchronous versions of an anticipatory stop-signal paradigm across two sessions while mu (µ) and beta (β) rhythm were measured with electroencephalography. Results showed that responses were behaviorally decoupled during asynchronous go trials and the extent of response asynchrony was associated with lateralized sensorimotor µ and β desynchronization during response preparation. Selective stopping produced a stopping-interference effect and was marked by a nonselective increase and subsequent rebound in prefrontal and sensorimotor β. In support of the coupling account, stopping-interference was smaller during selective stopping of asynchronous responses, and negatively associated with the magnitude of decoupling. However, the increase in sensorimotor β during selective stopping was equivalent between the stopped and unstopped hand irrespective of response synchrony. Overall, the findings demonstrate that decoupling facilitates selective stopping after a global pause process and emphasizes the importance of considering the influence of both the go and stop context when investigating response inhibition.

scholarly journals Reactivation of a previous target location: a new event-related potential component

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 978
Author(s):  
Hayley Lagroix ◽  
Nadja Jankovic ◽  
Aaron Richardson ◽  
Kevin Boyd ◽  
Vincent Di Lollo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Target Location ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Potential Component

scholarly journals Learning what is irrelevant or relevant: Expectations facilitate distractor inhibition and target facilitation through distinct neural mechanisms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk van Moorselaar ◽  
Heleen A. Slagter
Keyword(s):  
Target Location ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Distractor Inhibition ◽  
Distractor Processing ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Outstanding Question ◽  
Target Locations ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIt is well known that attention can facilitate performance by top-down biasing processing of task-relevant information in advance. Recent findings from behavioral studies suggest that distractor inhibition is not under similar direct control, but strongly dependent on expectations derived from previous experience. Yet, how expectations about distracting information influence distractor inhibition at the neural level remains unclear. The current study addressed this outstanding question in three experiments in which search displays with repeating distractor or target locations across trials allowed observers to learn which location to selectively suppress or boost. Behavioral findings demonstrated that both distractor and target location learning resulted in more efficient search, as indexed by faster response times. Crucially, benefits of distractor learning were observed without target location foreknowledge, unaffected by the number of possible target locations, and could not be explained by priming alone. To determine how distractor location expectations facilitated performance, we applied a spatial encoding model to EEG data to reconstruct activity in neural populations tuned to the distractor or target location. Target location learning increased neural tuning to the target location in advance, indicative of preparatory biasing. This sensitivity increased after target presentation. By contrast, distractor expectations did not change preparatory spatial tuning. Instead, distractor expectations reduced distractor-specific processing, as reflected in the disappearance of the Pd ERP component, a neural marker of distractor inhibition, and decreased decoding accuracy. These findings suggest that the brain may no longer process expected distractors as distractors, once it has learned they can safely be ignored.Significance statementWe constantly try hard to ignore conspicuous events that distract us from our current goals. Surprisingly, and in contrast to dominant attention theories, ignoring distracting, but irrelevant events does not seem to be as flexible as is focusing our attention on those same aspects. Instead, distractor suppression appears to strongly rely on learned, context-dependent expectations. Here, we investigated how learning about upcoming distractors changes distractor processing and directly contrasted the underlying neural dynamics to target learning. We show that while target learning enhanced anticipatory sensory tuning, distractor learning only modulated reactive suppressive processing. These results suggest that expected distractors may no longer be considered distractors by the brain once it has learned that they can safely be ignored.

Virtual Gas Turbines Part I: A Top-Down Geometry Modelling Environment for Turbomachinery Application

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davendu Y. Kulkarni ◽  
Gan Lu ◽  
Feng Wang ◽  
Luca di Mare
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
System Level ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Design Intent ◽  
Geometry Model ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Modelling Environment

Abstract The gas turbine engine design involves multi-disciplinary, multi-fidelity iterative design-analysis processes. These highly intertwined processes are nowadays incorporated in automated design frameworks to facilitate high-fidelity, fully coupled, large-scale simulations. The most tedious and time-consuming step in such simulations is the construction of a common geometry database that ensures geometry consistency at every step of the design iteration, is accessible to multi-disciplinary solvers and allows system-level analysis. This paper presents a novel design-intent-driven geometry modelling environment that is based on a top-down feature-based geometry model generation method. In the proposed object-oriented environment, each feature entity possesses a separate identity, denotes an abstract geometry, and carries a set of characteristics. These geometry features are organised in a turbomachinery feature taxonomy. The engine geometry is represented by a tree-like logical structure of geometry features, wherein abstract features outline the engine architecture, while the detailed geometry is defined by lower-level features. This top-down flexible arrangement of feature-tree enables the design intent to be preserved throughout the design process, allows the design to be modified freely and supports the design intent variations to be propagated throughout the geometry automatically. The application of the proposed feature-based geometry modelling environment is demonstrated by generating a whole-engine computational geometry. This geometry modelling environment provides an efficient means of rapidly populating complex turbomachinery assemblies. The generated engine geometry is fully scalable, easily modifiable and is re-usable for generating the geometry models of new engines or their derivatives. This capability also enables fast multi-fidelity simulation and optimisation of various gas turbine systems.

Input to Verbal Working Memory

2004 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 231-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Jacobsen ◽  
Erich Schröger
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Auditory Sensory Memory ◽  
Complex Tones ◽  
Informational Basis

Abstract. Working memory uses central sound representations as an informational basis. The central sound representation is the temporally and feature-integrated mental representation that corresponds to phenomenal perception. It is used in (higher-order) mental operations and stored in long-term memory. In the bottom-up processing path, the central sound representation can be probed at the level of auditory sensory memory with the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the event-related potential. The present paper reviews a newly developed MMN paradigm to tap into the processing of speech sound representations. Preattentive vowel categorization based on F1-F2 formant information occurs in speech sounds and complex tones even under conditions of high variability of the auditory input. However, an additional experiment demonstrated the limits of the preattentive categorization of language-relevant information. It tested whether the system categorizes complex tones containing the F1 and F2 formant components of the vowel /a/ differently than six sounds with nonlanguage-like F1-F2 combinations. From the absence of an MMN in this experiment, it is concluded that no adequate vowel representation was constructed. This shows limitations of the capability of preattentive vowel categorization.

scholarly journals Statistical regularities cause attentional suppression with target-matching distractors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Kerzel ◽  
Stanislas Huynh Cong
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Target Display ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Target Feature ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Target Matching

AbstractVisual search may be disrupted by the presentation of salient, but irrelevant stimuli. To reduce the impact of salient distractors, attention may suppress their processing below baseline level. While there are many studies on the attentional suppression of distractors with features distinct from the target (e.g., a color distractor with a shape target), there is little and inconsistent evidence for attentional suppression with distractors sharing the target feature. In this study, distractor and target were temporally separated in a cue–target paradigm, where the cue was shown briefly before the target display. With target-matching cues, RTs were shorter when the cue appeared at the target location (valid cues) compared with when it appeared at a nontarget location (invalid cues). To induce attentional suppression, we presented the cue more frequently at one out of four possible target positions. We found that invalid cues appearing at the high-frequency cue position produced less interference than invalid cues appearing at a low-frequency cue position. Crucially, target processing was also impaired at the high-frequency cue position, providing strong evidence for attentional suppression of the cued location. Overall, attentional suppression of the frequent distractor location could be established through feature-based attention, suggesting that feature-based attention may guide attentional suppression just as it guides attentional enhancement.

The effects of audiovisual task-set in visual search

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Pawel J. Matusz ◽  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Attentional Control Settings ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Attentional Selectivity ◽  
Auditory Features ◽  
Target Matching

We investigated whether top-down attentional control settings can specify task-relevant features in different sensory modalities (vision and audition). Two audiovisual search tasks were used where a spatially uninformative visual singleton cue preceded a target search array. In different blocks, participants searched for a visual target (defined by colour or shape in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively), or target defined by a combination of visual and auditory features (e.g., red target accompanied by a high-pitch tone). Spatial cueing effects indicative of attentional capture by target-matching visual singleton cues in the unimodal visual search task were reduced or completely eliminated when targets were audiovisually defined. The N2pc component (i.e. index attentional target selection in vision) triggered by these cues was reduced and delayed during search for audiovisual as compared to unimodal visual targets. These results provide novel evidence that the top-down control settings which guide attentional selectivity can include perceptual features from different sensory modalities.

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